IPCC author says Australia risks being left behind on climate

Updated
April 14, 2014 19:37:00

The Australian Government is not prepared to make a committment at this stage beyond a 5 per cent greenhouse cut by 2020. So who is? It's a fair question ahead of an important international meeting to set climate targets in Paris next year.

MARK COLVIN: As we just heard, the Australian Government is not prepared to make a commitment at this stage beyond a 5 per cent greenhouse cut by 2020.

So who is? It's a fair question ahead of an important international meeting to set climate targets in Paris next year.

David Mark reports.

DAVID MARK: Dr Frank Jotzo is one of the lead authors of the IPCC's fifth assessment report. He says the organisation doesn't tell countries what to do. Rather, he says, what it does is summarise knowledge about what's needed to be done to limit climate change to just two degrees.

FRANK JOTZO: So, we're talking about 40 to 70 per cent reductions by the middle of the century compared to today's levels.

DAVID MARK: While no country has committed to a 40 to 70 per cent cut at this stage, some are on the way.

JOHN CONNOR: When we look at the short term commitments in place, the pledges for 2020, then we can see that China is usually seen as roughly on track, or compatible with a trajectory to two degrees, because of their significant efforts to decarbonise their economy in the process of development.

There is a chance that Europe will be on that path too; just now making their decisions about the 2030 target, possibly in the area of a 40 per cent reduction. And there is every opportunity actually for the United States to be quite ambitious; the United States well on track to a 17 per cent reduction at 2020.

DAVID MARK: The main game will be played out at a meeting in Paris next year. John Connor is the chief executive of the Climate Institute.

JOHN CONNOR: Now, we have an agreement where all major emitters have agreed to be covered under one agreement, and that's to be agreed in Paris in 2015, and we've also set ourselves some timelines for commitments, and these are commitments not just up til 2020, but beyond 2020, and that's the key thing that this agreement will be looking at.

And countries like Australia need, by no later than April of next year, to be coming up with post-2020 agreements, and this will be very important, because it will render irrelevant the current debate about whether 5 per cent by 2020 is good enough. The IPCC has made very clear that we need to have very strong reductions, and there, when we're talking about 2030, and beyond.

DAVID MARK: Thus far Australia has only committed to a 5 per cent cut by 2020, although Greg Hunt says the Government will consider that number in line with the actions of other countries.

DAVID MARK: Dr Frank Jotzo.

FRANK JOTZO: The 2020 target of a 5 per cent reduction is generally seen as inadequate in the context of the pledges that other countries have made for the year 2020. So many analyses, including the recent report by the Climate Change Authority, point to the conclusion that a reduction in the order of 15 to 20 per cent at 2020 would be a fair share for Australia to carry in the context of what other countries have pledged.

DAVID MARK: Dr Jotzo and John Connor agree Australia is being watched - particularly with the Government planning to scrap the carbon tax and the carbon trading mechanism that was going to replace it.

JOHN CONNOR: A lot of politicians and businesspeople have said, oh, we're at the risk of going it alone. The only place we're going alone is backwards. We're even seeing Chile and Mexico looking at other carbon taxes or carbon markets.

DAVID MARK: At this stage the Australian public doesn't know whether the Australian Government is going to commit to any targets beyond 5 per cent. Can the world achieve the kind of climate cuts that the IPCC is talking about without Australia?

JOHN CONNOR: Oh look, it probably can. Australia though is actually a big polluter; we're in the top 20 in terms of absolute emissions, and so what we do matters at an absolute level.

DAVID MARK: Dr Frank Jotzo.

FRANK JOTZO: Look, if Australia does not come forward with significant climate change action, or with targets that are seen as meaningful internationally, then Australia will essentially revert to a kind of stereotype that many other countries have of us as a fossil fuel-rich economy that tends to be a break from the global climate change effort. So, in that sense, Australians can be unhelpful to the global effort, Australia will not stop the global effort.

MARK COLVIN: Dr Frank Jotzo, one of the lead authors of the IPCC's fifth assessment report, and the director of climate economics and policy at the Crawford School of Public Policy at the ANU.